Pirate Party wins two city council seats

Germany's Pirate Party continues to attract support and attention in the weeks leading up to the country's federal election. Representatives of the party were elected to participate in two city councils in North Rhine-Westphalia. The Pirates also did reasonably well in Saxony's state election, where 1.9 percent of the votes were cast for the party.

Roughly 2000 people voted for the Pirate Party in this Sunday's city council election in Muenster, a town known for its large student population. That's about 1.6 percent of the vote - enough to seat one party member in Muenster's city council. The pirates also won 1.7 percent of the vote in Aachen, which is the home of a well-known technical university. This means there will be a Pirate Party politician in Aachen's city council as well.

Possibly even more remarkable is the result of Saxony's state election, where 34,620 people, or 1.9 percent of the participating electorate, voted for the Pirate Party. That's far from the 5 percent needed to enter the state's parliament, and unfortunately only about a third of the number of votes cast for the neo-fascist NPD party - but it's impressive nonetheless.

Saxony's Pirate Party did particularly well in urban areas like Dresden, where it was able to get 3.43 percent of the votes. The Pirates were apparently a little bit overwhelmed with these results themselves: The party's web server has been returning error messages ever since word about the results got out late Sunday.